(I figured I would make my first Destructoid c-blog about a recent genre I have gotten into. By all means it isn't my favorite genre, but I've come to appreciate it a lot in the past year. I also have been lurking Dtoid for about a full year now but finally made an account about a month ago.)

Hello Destructoid, I am new here,

I love RPGs.

I only truly came into the genre this year, starting with a borrowed copy of Final Fantasy VII.

During my childhood my parents were adamant in their no videogames stance. I pleaded and begged and they never gave in. Perhaps that was good for me in the long run, as I became a ďLego ManiacĒ. It sure fostered creativity in me, and has undoubtedly been a major factor on who I have become thus far in life. While I never personally owned any systems until a Game Boy Pocket in the late 90ís, I had an aunt who owned an original NES, and my best friend owned a Super Nintendo. Every time we would visit my auntís apartment back in the day my two sisters and I would always draw names out of hat to see who could play first. We played Mario and Duck Hunt like mad. My aunt also had both Zelda games, which I took a liking to (my sisters couldnít be bothered to play much more than Mario though). I was young and was undoubtedly terrible, but at least I have a solid foundation for my Zelda love (Iíve never completed either of the NES Zelda games).

The next system that would fly into my life was the Super Nintendo. With age we stopped visiting my Aunt, and I was making friends in my neighborhood, I soon had a best friend (still good friends to this day in college). Unlike my parents, his were not opposed to videogames and he had a Super Nintendo, which we played the hell out of. We mainly stuck to Super Mario World and Donkey Kong Country. Iím getting to the point now, donít worry.

After being (very) interesting in videogames and using the internet for a lot of high school and college, Iíve gathered a few popular opinions. The main one of this article being: Final Fantasy as a respected RPG series and Final Fantasy VII in particular (and it has become increasingly apparent REAL fans like FFVI, and I'll get to playing that after V, so don't worry). I know, itís cool to hate FFVII, and call it overrated, but it was my first major JRPG and I liked it, so the negativity doesn't bug me a whole ton. A year ago though, this whole ďFinal FantasyĒ thing was extremely foreign territory. I had heard so much about it, and decided, ďYou know what, screw it, Iíll give it a goĒ. So I borrowed Final Fantasy X from a friend in high school, and hated it. I was just perplexed, confused, and completely lost after about a half hour with the game. It was one of the first games I actually just completely gave up on.

Maybe a different day my friend.

I said I was almost to the point, and now Iím almost there, sorry. But as my best friend and I grew older it became increasingly apparent of our difference in videogame tastes. I continued on my Zelda path, slaying moblins with swords and what not, and from Mario he went one to Goldeneye, Perfect Dark (We agree on these two games though, best FPSs), and slowly continued until he had a PS2 and was immersed in no nonsense games like GTAIII, Gran Turismo 3, Ace Combat 5 and other games with almost no inclusion of any fantasy elements. And this stayed true on the SNES. He never owned Zelda, Chrono Trigger, or the Final Fantasies (II and III, aka IV and VI). To be fair neither of us heard of these until later but he wouldnít have touched them regardless. At the expense of sounding like a complete asshole I believe Iíve accepted a wider genre of games than he has, as anything not set in current and modern times can fuck right off in his book.

You get the idea (yes I drew the picture).

Anyways, I had never played a real RPG as a result of this initial ignorance of them save Pokemon, which I donít know if I can really count it (But donít be fooled Pokemon Silver is in my Top 10 games of all time) as it doesnít really follow the whole ďswords, knights and magicĒ thing. So while at UMD for my freshman year of college (aka Ė lots of free time) I found out one of my friends there had a copy of FFVII. I was already wary of it since I hated X, but I figured, eh, itís older so maybe itíll be simpler. Not to mention when I thought of Final Fantasy that cover came to mind, as I have seen it on lots of ďTop 100Ē lists for games. I gave it a whirl.

In short: What a fantastic 57 hours.

After finishing the game at 5 am one (school) night with some of my floor-mates watching me I spent the rest of the morning reading on wiki to clear up the plot (I was confused). I didnít sleep that night, then the next night the friend who borrowed it to me and I watched Advent Children, and while not a very deep movie, the fan service fighting and such was great for me, especially coming off a marathon weekend of finishing FFVII (Damn gold chocobo). Ever since then Iíve just had a craving.

For some reason spending ass-loads of time level grinding, going to messed up locales and exploring the crazy stories and characters is really appealing. I AM a devout Metal Gear Solid fan.

Finally I am getting to the older RPGs I never had a chance to play. I bought Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, and IX so far, but have only just recently completed IV out of those.(very good game as well). I played through Chrono Cross and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance this semester, and look forward to getting Chrono Trigger maybe when it drops 10 dollars or something.

I transferred schools since then and I donít have the good friends that I had there. Iím wondering if this RPG lust is a way for me to cope, as the tail end of spring semester there was filled with the long nights of FFVII. It could be that, my addictive personality or both combined, but I would put RPGs in my top favorite genres now.

This is my first C-Blog, so don't hate me too much if it's terrible, or because I enjoyed FFVII. We can still be friends!